The development of our technological society gives rise to large quantities of waste of many different natures. At the present time, there are few technologies that can process and recycle waste with the efficiencies required by current regulations. Some of the processes that attempt to achieve this are extremely sophisticated or complex, which makes their application on an industrial basis quite difficult.
One method is incineration and further recovery of the by-product train. Incineration is susceptible to generate undesirable components such as NO.sub.x and dioxines due to the oxidizing atmosphere required for the operation. Also the process is conducted at relatively low temperature and the degree of waste destruction is relatively low.
Another waste treating method injects the waste into a liquid bath (metal or slag), cracking the components to their basic elements. The control of such process is quite sophisticated, and the ability to maintain the process under control in an industrial environment is questionable.
Other processes under development are based on plasma torch technology. In general the problems associated with a plasma torch process are refractories, reliability of the destruction rate, and lack of ability to process bulk materials.